4 6 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
mileage of its open surface but it must contain at least I 500 square miles of 
navigable water. Lake Mweru is about 68 miles long by 24 broad. Lake 
Chilwa in the extreme south-east is also of varying extent according to the 
rainy season or dry season; but it is as a rule about 50 miles long by 15 
broad. The salt lake Mweru which lies between the great Mweru Lake and 
Tanganyika is chiefly a marsh with a few open pools about 35 miles long 
by 20 broad. North of Lake Chilwa and separated from it by only a few 
miles of sandy ridge is Lake Chiuta, the source of the river Lujenda. 
Chiuta is about 40 miles long with a breadth which nowhere exceeds eight 
miles and sometimes shrinks to two. In the Lubisa country to the west of the 
CHAMBI PEAK, MLANJE 
Luangwa there is a small mountain lakelet about 40 square miles in area, which 
was called Lake Moir by its discoverer, Mr. Joseph Thomson. Lastly, may be 
mentioned Lake Malombe through which the Upper Shire flows. This lake had 
an area in 1S93 of about 100 square miles ; but in 1894 and in the succeeding 
years a large sand island grew up in the centre which became covered with reeds, 
and the lake as I last saw it was little more than a broad channel of the Shire 
divided by an enormous, flat, reed-covered island from a narrower channel or 
back-water to the west. There is every sign that in spite of the great rise in 
Lake Nyasa this island will hold its own. We shall then witness the remarkable 
himself called the lakelet Malombe, “ Pa-Malombe.” The root “ -eru,'’ or “ -elu," is a very old 
Bantu word for “open water.” With a different prefix it reappears far to the North as “ Rueru,” 
one of the native names of the Albert Nyanza. It would seem to be connected with the root 
“white.” It might be mentioned, however, that Mr. Poulett Weatherley appears to have heard the name 
“ Bangweulu ” in use. 
